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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > April > 22 > Entry
Q-and-A: Stephanie Prewitt, mezzo-soprano
Stephanie Prewitt’s luminous and rich mezzo-soprano voice has graced Austin stages for more than a decade. A native of Galveston and winner of an Austin Critics’ Table Award, Prewitt sings a vast repertoire and can be most often seen with several local ensembles that notably La Follia Austin Baroque and the Texas Early Music Project.
This Saturday, she’ll be featured in TEMP’s next concert, “Complaints Through the Ages,” 8 p.m. First English Lutheran Church, 3001 Whitis Ave. See early-music.org for ticket information.
What are you working on?
II just finished three performances of Messiah with Conspirare, which was enjoying its first excursion with a period orchestra. After this I’ll be singing in La Follia’s May concert.
So lately I’ve been immersed in singing with historical instruments, something I really love to do. Not that I don’t still love the modern ones! But when you’re singing the old style stuff, it’s great to get to do it with the old style instruments.
‘m now in rehearsals with Texas Early Music Project for a concert at the end of this week. TEMP’s next concert will involve medieval, renaissance and baroque instruments. It’s called “Complaints Through the Ages” and was inspired by this Complaint Choir fad that’s been happening in Europe and Canada. I first heard about it from my mother, who’d seen it featured on CBS Sunday Morning. Go to YouTube and type in “complaint choirs” and you’ll see what I’m talking about — it’s people singing about the things that annoy them, truly making lemons into lemonade.
When I heard them, I was reminded of a medieval piece that TEMP director Danny Johnsonloves to do called “Fort m’enoia” (in English, “I am greatly annoyed”); it’s basically a litany of complaints; and I thought, “Boy, we’ve been doing this for a long time, haven’t we?” When I told Danny about it, he said, “You know, I think you’ve got something there,” and proceeded to create an entire concert of complaints, from medieval time to now, topping it off with his own creation, woven out of the complaints of various members of TEMP. We just sang through it for the first time last night. I love it. It’s delightfully amusing and beautiful to hear.
What do you like about Austin’s classical music scene?
Two things occur to me at once: the warmth and collegiality, and the enormous range of repertoire that’s offered here. I love it that I never get up in front of an orchestra in Austin anymore that isn’t comprised of lots of old friends who I’ve heard playing……. tango, celtic, Brahms, Corigliano, a film score, jazz, you name it, in some other venue. And there they all are, come together to play a larger work, with a real depth of understanding for that style too. The Live Music Capitol of the World gets more of its juice from classical repertoire than a lot of people realize. The musicians that you hear in classical concerts here are gigging all over the place, and many of them bring in colleagues from other parts of the world to “enrich the scene”, so to speak. Musicians from around the country and around the world love to visit and perform in Austin — that’s true for classical music as well as other musical genres. It all makes for a great musical community in which to live and work.
How could Austin’s classical scene be improved?
One thing that would help enormously — a piece of real estate to call our own. I work with a lot of chamber groups and vocal ensembles, and we were all so sad when the Long Center had to scale back it’s original design, which provided more rehearsal and office space, as well as a medium-sized hall with acoustics more suited to chamber music.
We’re truly fortunate to be supported by so many of the beautiful churches in Austin. That’s where most of our work happens. But life would be easier for us — and more good work could happen — if we had a building in which to rehearse, perform, park instruments between performance, etc.
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By helena
April 25, 2009 3:57 PM | Link to this
stephanie’s voice is so rich and lovely. there have been times that I’ve heard her sing that I’ve felt choked up with the beauty of it.